=> KARACHI: The Archive and Research Department (A&RD
KARACHI: The Archive and Research Department (A&RD) of the City District Government Karachi (CDGK), which is funcÂtioning without a professional librarian and skilled staff and has plenty of pending documents to take care of, has now also been burdened with old documents belonging to the Master Plan Group of Offices, Daily Times has learnt.
ADO Misbah lqbal told Daily Times that the new consignment used to be stored in the library located on the second floor of the Civic Center. This library, according to CDGK sources, is being developed into an urban traffic control room for the CDGK’s transport and communication department.
“Around 250 plastic bags, full of documents related to the city’s planning in the last 60 years, have also been given to the Archive and Research Department. So far, 1,600 documents, including volÂumes of research reports, planning data, magazines and maps etc. have been listed manually to develop a library in the department. It will be computerized after the manual work is finished,” said lqbal.
The documents sent by the Master Plan Group of Offices conÂtain the complete history of the city’s development in the last six decades. It shows that in 1965, the defunct Karachi Development Authority had acquired the services of Andrej B. Jedraszko, UN advisor for city planning and housÂing, who conducted a research on various sectors of the city and submitted reports comprising hundreds of pages. Many documents consists planning details acquired from Netherlands, Kuwait, Ghana and other countries to develop various housing schemes in the city in areas like Korangi and Clifton.
Meanwhile, the archives department, which was formed six months ago in the Old KMC Building (now the City Council Secretariat), and started functioning with seven officials shifted from other departments, has its hands full with already pending work.
“So far, hardly 30 to 40 perÂcent of the documents have been retrieved from the 1,000 plastic bags recovered from the rooftop of the building,” said an official requesting anonymity. “With the slow pace of work, it would take another couple of months to retrieve all the documents and disÂplay the important ones in the exhibition hall for visitors.”
ADO Iqbal also confirmed that not a single officer had been deputed for the department. “We have been sent a summary, approved by the City Council, for acquiring proper staff but so far, no hiring has been done and the present number of people is insufÂficient for carrying out such a major job without training and necessary equipment.”
The department is supposed to computerise documents, such as historical orders issued by different mayors of the city and blueprints of prominent buildings, to help students and those interÂested in Karachi’s history. Among the documents retrieved, some contain information about the history of Karachi from 1800 to 2000 in the form of drawings and blueprints\f the city’s prominent buildings, markets and offices, and maps of the water and sewerÂage network.
Source: Daily Times
Date:12/17/2007
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